The tagline to Lisa Frankenstein, “Dig up someone special,” perfectly encapsulates this irreverent, Grand Guignol teen rom-com. Written by Diablo Cody and directed by Zelda Williams, the film plays like a spiritual sequel to Cody’s previous supernatural outing, Jennifer’s Body, with its goofy tone, magnificent dialogue and comical gore (even with a PG-13 rating, it goes pretty hard). Overall, the film plays like a mad scientist’s unholy mashup of Heathers and the works of early career Tim Burton.
The narrative follows Lisa, a social misfit who finds herself living in a nuclear-esque family after her widowed father remarries. She’s haunted by the death of her mother, who was ax-murdered by a home intruder only months prior. Lisa spends much of her time in an abandoned cemetery near her home, where she makes wax-paper rubbings of the various old tombstones. Her favorite is a grave marker for a young, unmarried man with a bust of his Victorian visage on top, with whom she has one-way conversations.
Lisa’s life becomes super-complicated when the young dead man gets reanimated during a freak, mysterious storm, and fairly quickly professes his love for her. Problem is, Lisa is hung up on her school’s lit-mag editor, and doesn’t like her new undead friend that way. Still, she vows to keep him hidden in her room and help him in any way she can — even if that means getting up to some nefarious deeds in the process.
Williams just happens to be the late Robin Williams’ daughter, and her directorial debut features a dark sense of humor similar to his. The two leads, Kathryn Newton as Lisa and Cole Sprouse as the creature, handle the material as expertly as their newcomer director and veteran screenwriter. Though Lisa Frankenstein clearly is intended for a younger audience, adults will deeply enjoy this film as well, especially if they remember all too well what it’s like to be a misunderstood teenager in a world that seems hellbent against them.—Christopher Shultz